


What do you know about him?

by NocturnalNautica (EarthGirl)



Series: Sparkling AU [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mentions of Mechpreg, Transformer Sparklings, mentions of Shadowplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 18:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13957590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthGirl/pseuds/NocturnalNautica
Summary: Ratchet had never trusted Shockwave. He and Roller were in agreement that the flashy senator's interest in their brilliant, but naive and idealistic friend was highly suspicious. But when Shockwave is captured, Orion reveals a secret that forces Ratchet to rethink his opinion of the man.





	What do you know about him?

“Pax?!? Chromedome?!?  We heard the explosion! Are you alri…”

“Ratchet, they took him.”

Ratchet slowed his pace and approached his friend cautiously, shocked by the bitterness in his voice and the pain in his expression. Through all that they had suffered together, he had never seen Orion look _this_ distraught before.

“Do you have any clues? Is there anything we can do?”

Orion shook his head, looking furious in his helplessness, and Chromedome muttered in a defeated voice,

“I tried to take him to the Institute, but it turns out there’s more than one. There may even be one under each clinic. It’s over, Ratchet. The trail is cold.”

With that, perhaps sensing the need to give Orion some privacy to cry on his best friend’s shoulder, Chromedome left the room.

Guilt crushed Ratchet as he put an arm around Orion in an attempt to comfort him. Recent events had proved the Senator to be a good and honorable man, and he found himself bitterly regretting not having given him a chance. No matter how many reasons he and Roller had to mistrust Shockwave’s intentions towards their friend, he couldn’t help feeling that perhaps they should have made an effort to keep an open mind, if only for how much it would have meant to Orion.

“I am so sorry, old friend. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yes.” Orion was trembling, but his voice sounded firm and his optics were fierce when they met Ratchet’s. “I don’t know what they will do to him, but by the time they are done he may have told them everything. We have to be quick, Ratchet. You need to help me to move the children.”

Ratchet’s optics blinked confusedly.

“Children? What are you talking abo…”

But Orion had already transformed and began to drive away. Ratchet sighed and followed, wondering in exactly how much trouble Orion would get him this time.

They drove to an isolated corner of the city and turned into a small alley. Orion transformed again and unlocked a hidden, insignificant door Ratchet might not have noticed otherwise.

“What is happening?” Ratchet asked, returning to primary mode, but Orion didn’t answer. Gesturing for Ratchet to hurry, he slipped inside and closed the door after them as soon as they were in.

It took Ratchet a moment to readjust his optics’ settings to the dark environment. When he did, he was startled to see that there were indeed about two dozen sparklings staring apprehensively at him. They were a wide variety of age, size, and altmode, but the pattern was easy to see: most of them were considered low class, and the few exceptions exhibited signs of what the Senate and the Functionist Council would consider “imperfections.”

“Orion, how…”

“In a moment,” whispered Orion. He then turned to the children. “Kids, I’d like you to meet my friend Ratchet. You can trust him, he’s here to help us.”

“Where is Mr. Shockwave?” asked a small boy, and Ratchet flinched. Despite the formal language, the child sounded as if he was asking after a parent. Had Shockwave rescued all of these younglings? How could he afford to look after all of them? The place was dark and cramped, that much was true, but it was clean, and the children appeared to be well fed. They were certainly doing much better than that unfortunate Dead End youth Orion had carried to his clinic a few days before. Most of these children would probably have ended up like that poor kid, had the senator not brought them here. Just how much had he and Roller misjudged the man?

“Shockwave can’t join us today” said Orion, struggling to sound calm. “Listen, children, we’ll have to m… Oh. Hello, Bee.” 

A tiny yellow blob had crawled to Orion’s feet and was chirping happily at him. Orion offered him a faint smile, picked him up, pressed his mouthplate tenderly to the tiny head, and held him tightly against his chest.

“We’ll have to move,” he continued, turning back to the other children, who exchanged alarmed looks with each other. “It’s ok!” Orion added quickly. “As long as we’re fast about it, everything will be alright.”

“But…” Began one of them. Orion interrupted.

“I’ll answer questions later, I promise. Now hurry to pack.”

The kids ran out, disappearing through three doors at the end of the room. Ratchet waited until they were gone to whisper.

“Do you even have a place to take them to?”

“I do. Shock…” he gulped while pronouncing the name, and held the baby tighter. Ratchet couldn’t help thinking that he looked like one of the children clutching a doll for comfort. “Shockwave made me select a place he knew nothing about, and he had one I didn’t know either. A precaution in case one of us was captured.”

“He’s a very wise man.”

Orion didn’t reply. His optics offlined, and he pressed his mouthplate to the sparkling’s head again.

Ratchet frowned. While great with children, his friend wasn’t usually this affectionate. Was this behavior just the result of distress at what had happened to his beloved, or…

Forcing himself to smile, Ratchet made the soft, silly voice people use to address newborns.

“And who is _this_ little fellow?”

The child laughed and reached for him with a tiny chubby hand. Orion smiled and his optics came online again, albeit shakily.

“This is Bumblebee. He’s been here for six months, and… Ratchet, I am sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m adopting him.”

Ah. Suspicions confirmed. Ratchet was happy for Orion, but he couldn’t deny he felt a little bit hurt.

“Congratulations. Why… Why did you keep a secret?”

 “Because the adoption isn’t… Entirely legal.”

Ratchet didn’t have to ask what he meant.  To his trained medical optics, the poor child’s history was clear.

At any time two ‘bots engaged in spark merging, there was a chance of a fragile new spark forming inside one, or both, of them. However, the budding formation could not develop and turn into a living creature unless it attached itself to sentio metallico, and continued to receive doses of it through the entire carrying process, so that its body could continue to grow. The first dose always came from the parents, who were likely to be interfacing at the time of the merge anyway, but the source of the subsequent ones varied. Ideally, the parents should continue to interface regularly, providing the baby with everything it needed to grow. But there were times in which that was not possible. So, to accommodate single or widowed carriers, a group of doctors created sentio metallico supplements that had quite the same effect, as long as the carrier consumed them regularly and at the correct doses.

In itself, the supplement had been a great idea, and its introduction to the public had been the salvation of many a desperate carrier. However, as it did to every scientific advancement, the Senate had soon found a way to abuse it. It was announced that the government would provide sentio supplements to any pregnant bot in need who couldn’t afford to buy his own. What the propaganda failed to mention was that the type of supplement given to each carrier would be determined by bigoted politics, rather than for each parent’s and child’s individual health needs.

Tarn was one of the clearest examples of that. The supplements distributed there were of the strongest variant, guaranteed to help any spark to build itself a strong, resistant body. But any ‘bot who wished to have access to the supplement had to first sign his unborn child’s life into perpetual servitude in the mines.

(That, Ratchet imagined, must be how Megatron had been born. There had to be a reason why the Decepticon movement came down on this policy harder than it did on any of the other laws it protested.)

The baby in Orion’s arms was a victim of the opposite situation. Some minibots were the result of a happy union between minibot parents, but half a dozen signs told Ratchet that that hadn’t been Bumblebee’s case. The child looked as if it was recovering from severe illness, and was clearly the result of some poor ‘bot deemed low class being forced to spend the pregnancy consuming low quality sentio because the government didn’t think he or the baby deserved better. Considering Bumblebee’s present location, Ratchet doubted the carrier had survived the birth.

Regulations for adoption were becoming increasingly stricter, and aimed to prevent parents from adopting children whose G.C.T. classifications were too distant from their own. A Point One Percenter like Orion would never be granted permission to adopt a child like Bumblebee.  

“Shockwave had to call in favors and falsify Bee’s registration documents before we filed for adoption,” continued Orion. “I wanted to tell you, but he knew you and Roller didn’t trust him, so he was reluctant to share confidential information with you. ”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry I didn’t give him m…” Ratchet froze midsentence, as he realized the implications of what Orion had said. “Pax, did you say _we_?”

“Did I?” Once again, Orion was clearly struggling to appear calm. “Force of habit, I suppose. No, I ended up filing the papers by myself. We decided that having his name there would invite too close an investigation of the adoption, and the forgery might be discovered.”

“But… You planned to…”

Ratchet found himself at a loss for words. All this time he had thought Orion’s relationship with the senator was a mere fling, feared that the senator was using his friend, when actually…

His thoughts were interrupted when Orion started to shake hard enough to startle the baby, who began to cry.

Rushing forward, Ratchet gently took Bumblebee and muttered placating soft words at him. Attracted by the noise, one of the older boys showed up at the door.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, don’t worry,” said Orion, with a forced smile, and Ratched marveled at his ability to fake tranquility in front of the sparklings. “Are you kids almost done?”

“Almost,” said the boy, reluctantly returning to work. When he closed the door after him, Ratchet placed a now quiet Bumblebee on a nearby crib, pulled Orion to a couch, and sat with an arm around him.

“I’m so sorry all of this happened, my friend. And I’m sorry I made you feel you couldn’t tell me about something so important to you.”

“Thank you. You know, Ratchet… I had a whole plan to make you friends. I thought that when we showed up with Bee and introduced him as our son, you’d see he was serious about me and give him a chance.  And once you did, I know the two of you would be cracking jokes in no time. You have very similar senses of humor.”

“Do we? I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to find that out on my own. It seems I lost a potential good friend.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to have some drinks with him yet.” Orion laughed at the startled look Ratchet gave him. “Don’t get me wrong, Ratchet, I’m _furious_ that he was taken, and it _kills_ me to think of what they must be doing to him. But I know this situation is temporary. He will be back. I don’t know how or when, I don’t know if he’ll escape or if we’ll rescue him, but mark my words, he _will_ come back to Bumblebee and me.”

“Orion…” Ratchet hesitated, wondering if confronting his friend’s denial while they were waiting for a group of sparklings that depended on them would be a good idea.  Deciding that it would be best to speak now than to wait who knows how long for another chance, he cautiously completed, “you do know they’re submitting him to shadowplay, right?”

Orion’s hands closed into fists.

“I know. And I realize that will be a huge obstacle that may take thousands of years to get through, but…”

“Orion,” Ratchet interrupted, gently, but firmly. As a doctor, he could not allow this kind of misconception about shadowplay to spread. And as a friend, he could not sit by and allow Orion to develop such wild and impossible fantasies. “Shadowplay is irreversible.”

“No. No one has reversed Shadowplay this far, that we know of, but I _know_ that my Shockwave will be the first. Stop looking at me like that, Ratchet! I’m not being delusional. I simply know him. I know his strength, I know his spark, and I know he’ll find a way to break through whatever they do to him. No,” he added, when Ratchet opened his mouth,” don’t try to talk me out of this belief, Ratchet, you’d be wasting your time. You don’t know Shockwave as I do. I know what I’m talking about. Just wait and see, he’ll prove me right.”

Ratchet doubted that, but didn’t know how to keep arguing. Taking his silence for admission of defeat, Orion got up from the couch and walked towards Bumblebee’s crib. The fire that had been in him while he defended the senator was momentarily gone, and for the first time since the beginning of that entire ordeal, he sounded exhausted.

“But to be honest, I hope he doesn’t take too long. I… I’m not prepared to raise a child on my own.”

And for that, at least, Ratchet had the perfect response. Standing up, he walked towards the crib, extended a finger for the baby to hold, and turned to his friend.

“You won’t have to, Orion.  I know it’s not the same, but I’ll be here for both of you, and I know you have other friends who’ll be glad to help too. Remember, no matter what happens, you never have to worry about being alone.”

Orion’s hands clutched the crib, but some of the tension seemed to leave his shoulders. He was silent for a moment, then looked up at Ratchet with smiling optics.

“Thank you, old friend.”

“We’re done!” Announced a small voice.

The children returned to the main room, holding up little bags for inspection. They were more organized than any children should have to be, but Ratchet felt a warmth in his spark when he saw each of them had a few toys of their own. Shockwave had, indeed, been a good man.

The end the poor senator had met was tragic, and the knowledge that he had been about to start a family made it even more so. But, Ratchet reflected as he transformed and allowed most of the children to enter the back of the ambulance, he would have to find a way to convince Orion to give up his delusion that things could still happen as he had planned to. The longer that went on, the harder it would hurt when truth hit him. And besides, it would be a shame if Orion allowed one tragic and failed romance to keep him from enjoying life. He was a great guy and a great catch. Surely, thought Ratchet, someone new was bound to come along sooner rather than later, and help him forget?

He hoped so. And he hoped that when this new person came along, it would be someone who as good as Shockwave had been.


End file.
